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Just caught this over a MySpace (gasp!) bulletin. Actually, I'm lying, Shannon called me when she posted this to make sure I saw it. Because you know I wouldn't have.
Girls - pick the first guy on your top friends. Unless their family than pick the next one. Guys - do the same, but the first girl .
- Don't change it - Enter their name - Be honest - Repost this so your friends can do it too
1. Who is it? ...Errriiiccckkk.
2. How did you meet? 6th grade, baby. We go back.
3. If you were crying would this person cheer you up? Always.
4. Where is this person? Wendell
5. Have you ever spent the night with this person? I've crashed at his place. But not with him. We don't roll like that, s0n.
6. Will this person repost this? Lol, Never.
7. Is this person family? Yup. Always will be part of it.
8. Do you trust this person ? Uh Hu. He knows me better than anyone.
9. If you could change something about them, would you? Nope. Well, I'd make it so he called more often. But we're both so damn busy.
10. Does this person live close to you? 5 minutes away.
11. How much does this person know about you? TOO much...=). Just kidding.
12. What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with this person? We'd probably do stuipd shit so the people monitoring the elevator cameras would be laughing their asses off. And then I'd probably be fussing him out, saying this was all his fault and he'd just sit there trying to take apart the damn elevator keypad and claim it was something he's always wanted to do. What a retard... ;)
13. Do you argue with this person? God yes. And we fight. I'm Talking an all out BRAWL. ;)
14. If you guys went to jail together, what would it be for? Running from the cops. Hacking into some top secret government website. Aiding and Ebedding. TRYING to get into Lake Royal. ha...
15. Do you want to see this person right now? Sometime soon, Yeah. I miss him =(
"MY TOP BOY"- if you're a girl and "MY TOP GIRL"-if your a guy
I love you too, Shannon. You're... mostly correct. On which parts... I'm not at liberty to disclose. :D
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+Terrence Lui definitely, i'd love to hear more about your efforts and would love to help brainstorm the recruiting process.
There are people that have a gift of hiring good people. I personally think that a friendly exchange with an individual and a philosophical conversation can go a long way.
Personally, respect is the biggest key for me in a employee/employer relationship. I think upfront and straight forward is the ideal.
What are the key traits you want in an employee? Diversity is key for a team, but you need focused individuals and broad thinking individuals as well.
In my past I have loved the hiring process and offering my recommendation to employers. When I worked for a sporting goods store, I doubled back on my managers suggestion during a final interview and the manager was very unhappy about it. Something was off.
I left the job for an unrelated reason a month later and they hired the guy I turned away against my recommendation. He proceeded to embezzle over 10,000 in merchandise before being caught stealing bats and selling them second hand. The reason it felt wrong.
Mutual respect is key.
I personally would request an email to introduce yourself (if you have more than a handful of applications face to face with every potential is not cost effective)
from that, don't focus 100% on experience. You need a well rounded team, that means old and new perspectives.
Also, don't promote someone to supervisor that is the best designer. Adequately gauge the persons talents and build them in that area. A supervisor does not have to know a thing about who they are supervising. It depends on your desired form of leadership. Some models take the best and have them lead, some take leaders and have them work with the best.
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I had the privilege of meeting Reagan and Mondale on their campaigns. Both were off the cuff communicators and extremely sharp and personable. I didn't feel like either one calculated their responses to our questions. Mondale didn't have the "camera friendly" charisma, but in person, he was quite animated. I liked them both.
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I was expanding on the issue of basic libraries as another sore point in Node and how you could use another CommonJS variant and have one less issue to contend with.
I'm not quite sure where PHP got into the debate but you must realize that they might feel they are offering a valid alternative albeit with advantages skewed to their skillset but as PHP person, your investment in the language renders that point moot.
That person doesn't own the car, they might only lease. So their priorities are gonna be different.
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Eric, Have we had the conversation about the predatory nature of evolutionary psychology inspiring Darwinian interactions within our own species? Play should not only be for children, we should teach humans to play together throughout their lives. I believe we've spoken about the necessity of philosophy in elementary school curriculum? Any chance you'd be interested in working with the state to make this happen? Are you searching for the complete solution through institution or solely seeking answers through decentralized systems?
Toni Lane Casserly, TLC Sent from my mobile. Pardon any error of the thumb.
Confidentiality notice: The information transmitted in this email and/or any attached document(s) is confidential and intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer.
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October 16th is Ada Lovelace Day, in which we celebrate women's achievements in science, technology, engineering, and math.
Ada Lovelace is heralded as the first computer programmer, writing programs (calculating Bernoulli Numbers) for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine as early as 1843 [1]. One of the most prominent mathematicians at the time, August de Morgan, had impressive things to say about her abilities, “which would require all the strength of a man's constitution to bear” [2], and Babbage himself highlighted her prowess over other contemporaries to Faraday, the legendary English scientist, in a succinct personal correspondence [3]. I've included a transcription of her work [4], showing just how thorough and detailed she was.
It's important to take a moment to note some of the other women who have made significant contributions to the advancement of society over the years. One of my favorites is Marie Curie, seen in this photo as the only women to appear alongside the intellectual powerhouse that assembled for the Solvay Conference in 1927. Seated between physicists Planck and Lorentz, she is in good company along with the likes of Einstein and Heisenberg.
Curie remains, to this day, the only person to have ever won a Nobel Prize in multiple sciences. [5]
Here are a couple other notable women that deserve recognition:
- Gertrude Belle Elion (biochemist): Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1988. [6] Gertrude invented an incredible swathe of drugs using innovative new research methods [7], including the first treatment for leukemia. [8]
- Jane Goodall (primatologist): outstanding achievement in anthropology through her incredible 45-year field study of wild chimpanzees [9] which has wildly changed the school of thought in regards to man's connection to primates. Goodall has been a role model of mine since I first encountered her and her work as a child reading National Geographic Magazine.
Instead of letting today pass only remembering one woman's contributions, take a moment to share your story and your female role model. [10]
So, what women do you revere in science, technology, engineering, or maths?
#AdaLovelaceDay #STEM
[1]: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Ada_and_the_First_Computer.pdf
[2]: http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/demorgan.gif
[3]: http://books.google.com/books?id=vKesSblgySgC&lpg=PA164&as_brr=0&pg=PA164#v=onepage&f=true
[4]: http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html
[5]: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/nobelprize_facts.html
[6]: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1988/elion-autobio.html
[7]: Holloway, M. (1991) Profile: Gertrude Belle Elion – The Satisfaction of Delayed Gratification, Scientific American 265(4), 40-44.
[8]: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/83/8325/83256-mercaptopurine.html
[9]: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0304/feature5/fulltext.html
[10]: http://directory.findingada.com/stories/
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Remote Desktop-ing from work to my personal computer at the house today... and there I was, multitasking AGAIN... Photoshop and Dreamweaver both open... and I was DRAWING with RDP. Well, so Photoshop decides to lock EVERYTHING up. So, I restart the computer and open Remote Desktop again. I connect to my computer, I log in... and KAZZAM!!!!!111one!
There's everything running perfectly just as it was. I was happy. IPG!
I'm tired as hell now, too. We ended up doing like... 400 jumping jacks... and 100 kicks of each type. I'm tired as fook. Oh, and for those that don't understand what I'm talking about, I take Isshin-ryu Karate. Since I'm too tired to list my other experience in martial arts, I think I'm going to lay down.
Readygo.
OR NOT!
Our car decided not to start. Hell, it wasn't even turning. I kicked it. It turned.
You see, certain things deserve a good kick in the face sometimes. Of course, I'd never do that to a person. Unless they did something wrong. That's human nature, though.... ANYWAY. Before I trail off into philosophy, I'll continue on my previous subject. Things such as cars and the occasional computer deserve a good kick. Not just a love tap, but not a decapitation, either. I mean, have you ever build a quantum particle accelerator that just randomly stopped working until you kicked it out of frustation, at which point it sends 300W of microwave energy into your stomach?
Kicking something isn't always the solution, though. There I was using Windows, and it decided to choke and DIE! DIE! DIE! I digress. It was loading something, probably explorer.exe ... and I decided to stroke it. Stroking my machine isn't exactly conventional, but of course, it suddenly worked. Ever since, I've been extremely superstitious about the way I touch my machine. One wrong bump, and it gets irrated at me, and starts shooting sparks everywhere. But a little scratch on the top of the case and it's all good. It works like a charm, let me tell you. Your computer will be cooking popcorn and making your bed in no time.
Speaking of your computer popping teh popcorn, has anyone talked to HAL on GWing lately? Is it just me, or is Chrono trying to get HAL to grow a body and assassinate me? For real? He's getting thoroughly viscious. I've already started a topic on GWing about it, and I guess it'll evolve with time. http://gwing.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=539
Readyslowgo.
-- Eric Martindale IT Professional Admin of GWing.net
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Warning: Strong nerdery follows. Please be cautious of your fragile mind.
Since late 1997, in all of my pre-teen glory, I have been involved with something my friends and I simply called roleplay in our own little vernacular. Of course I've since learned that roleplay doesn't only refer to the peer-driven world of online roleplay, it refers to all sorts of real-world tabletop games, live acting, and various amounts of storytelling, but this particular post is written with the word roleplay referring to the freeform online roleplaying that I have always been so close to.
Freeform roleplay, or the idea that there is no GM (game master) or storyteller (as in Vampire: The Masquerade), and is instead driven solely by the players, with no concrete rules for battle, statistics, or progression of the story. Rules and guidelines were driven by common expectation, which developed as a sort of social justice system that remains effective, even today.
The very roots of this sort of roleplay stem from early chat systems, where one could adopt a simple moniker and create a personality around the idea of an "avatar", which in most cases consisted only of this name. Players, without defining themselves as such, would interact in an imaginative world that coalesced out of their collaborative imagination. Each would react to the other characters' actions and dialogue in a fashion that suited their own character's theoretical personality, and this would create a constantly evolving story arc.
As the web (and the young teen's perception of the web) evolved and grew, so did the concept of roleplay. Online forums became an entirely new beast, allowing users to write more and more into their in character posts, instead of being limited to the single lines that chat provided (of course, some chats had enough space for people to post a full paragraph, or even two - but this was limited at the time), they were able to expound upon their writing and even proofread their copy before sending it across the web for the other players to view.
Freeform roleplay had also grown to be very competitive at this point, with groups of players forming groups known as clans, guilds, or otherwise, and expanded their IC competitions from chat to the forums and message boards now provided by a few enterprising organizations (or individuals). It was this competitive banter and challenge that defined what many now call the golden age of roleplay, which is what really drove the forefront of this gaming medium.
There were plenty of players who had entered their late teens (and some even were adults at this point, gasp!) who moved away from chat, and who moved away from the conflict-driven world of this type of roleplay. They went on to create storyline-oriented games, with a small and select number of players in more of a collaborative fiction setting. These players often went on to become writers and editors, being driven more by the literary aspect of relaying a fiction onto the internet, and often have their own private niche where they can continue to do this with their long-standing playergroup.
And... that's where we are today. The freeform roleplay community is growing and changing, barely 15 years old at this point. We have the chance to nurture it, just as we have the chance to neglect it. Those of us who've been involved since the beginning have the greatest opportunity to influence the course of growth, and that's exactly what I'm hoping to do.
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Being a fighter, I've been through this weight-cutting business plenty of times. Personally, yeah it's a pain in the ass, but we're athletes and in more cases than not - our bodies should be able to handle this. It should be at our own or our managers' discretion on whether or not we are healthy enough to cut weight.
Cutting weight continues to be a significant part of weight-restricted sports such as MMA, wrestling and boxing. It has gone on for so long that as the old aphorism goes, "Familiarity breeds contempt."
All those athletes, coaches, promoters, sanctioning bodies and fans associated with these sports have learned to accept it, consider it part of the culture, and turn a blind eye.
They all know – even if they won't admit it – that rapid, significant weight-cutting is unhealthy and potentially deadly. Most serious wrestlers have a personal story about the perils of such weight-cutting either through first hand knowledge or vicariously via a close friend or teammate. But the desire to win continues this potentially dangerous ritual.
What for decades has consisted self-reporting and self-monitoring of weight has not worked. And "documentation" of weight by a friendly doctor has been ineffective at best.
Therefore the primary issue of weight should be removed from the combatant. Simple, clear and easily enforceable rules and guidelines should be initiated to better protect the athletes.
My suggestions are as follow:
All standard fight agreements must be signed at least 45 days prior to the scheduled event.
No fighter may enter into a fight agreement weighing greater than 10 percent over the agreed upon weight limit. For example, the agreed-upon weight is 171 pounds. Therefore, each fighter can weigh no more than 171 pounds + 10 percent (188 pounds total) to sign the fight agreement.
At 30 days prior to fight, neither fighter can weigh more than 5 percent over the agreed-upon weight limit. For example, the agreed-upon weight is 171 pounds. Therefore each fighter can weigh no more than 180 pounds.
On the official day of weigh-in, if a fighter is more than 1 percent overweight, the fight cannot take place. Since the promoter is the employer, the promoter will be fined by the sanctioning body.
On the official day of weigh-in, if a fighter is less than 1 percent overweight, he or she can be given additional time to make weight. If on the second weigh-in, the fighter remains overweight, a financial penalty can be levied and paid to the on-weight fighter, at his or her discretion.
If during a championship fight the champion is overweight greater than 1 percent at the official weigh-in, the fight will not take place and the challenger is given the belt as interim champion.
If during a championship fight the champion is overweight by less than 1 percent and after an opportunity cannot make weight, the fight may still go on. If the champion wins, the title will be considered vacant. If the challenger wins, he will assume the title.
All weigh-in dates (bout agreement day and 30-day check) will be video monitored by live computer webcam and recorded. Each camp will watch the other camp calibrate the scale and weigh in over live video webcam stream (Skype). The sanctioning body will monitor the weigh-in in a similar fashion.
Understandably, this is not a system that could be implemented quickly or easily when considering the restraints of some state commissions and some of the inconsistencies from one regulatory body to the next.
However, my goal is for this ideal guideline to serve as a basis for substantive discussion and a potential framework to better protect the safety of the athletes that participate in MMA.
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October 16th is Ada Lovelace Day, in which we celebrate women's achievements in science, technology, engineering, and math.
Ada Lovelace is heralded as the first computer programmer, writing programs (calculating Bernoulli Numbers) for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine as early as 1843 [1]. One of the most prominent mathematicians at the time, August de Morgan, had impressive things to say about her abilities, “which would require all the strength of a man's constitution to bear” [2], and Babbage himself highlighted her prowess over other contemporaries to Faraday, the legendary English scientist, in a succinct personal correspondence [3]. I've included a transcription of her work [4], showing just how thorough and detailed she was.
It's important to take a moment to note some of the other women who have made significant contributions to the advancement of society over the years. One of my favorites is Marie Curie, seen in this photo as the only women to appear alongside the intellectual powerhouse that assembled for the Solvay Conference in 1927. Seated between physicists Planck and Lorentz, she is in good company along with the likes of Einstein and Heisenberg.
Curie remains, to this day, the only person to have ever won a Nobel Prize in multiple sciences. [5]
Here are a couple other notable women that deserve recognition: - Gertrude Belle Elion (biochemist): Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1988. [6] Gertrude invented an incredible swathe of drugs using innovative new research methods [7], including the first treatment for leukemia. [8] - Jane Goodall (primatologist): outstanding achievement in anthropology through her incredible 45-year field study of wild chimpanzees [9] which has wildly changed the school of thought in regards to man's connection to primates. Goodall has been a role model of mine since I first encountered her and her work as a child reading National Geographic Magazine.
Instead of letting today pass only remembering one woman's contributions, take a moment to share your story and your female role model. [10]
So, what women do you revere in science, technology, engineering, or maths?
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October 16th is Ada Lovelace Day, in which we celebrate women's achievements in science, technology, engineering, and math.
Ada Lovelace is heralded as the first computer programmer, writing programs (calculating Bernoulli Numbers) for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine as early as 1843 [1]. One of the most prominent mathematicians at the time, August de Morgan, had impressive things to say about her abilities, “which would require all the strength of a man's constitution to bear” [2], and Babbage himself highlighted her prowess over other contemporaries to Faraday, the legendary English scientist, in a succinct personal correspondence [3]. I've included a transcription of her work [4], showing just how thorough and detailed she was.
It's important to take a moment to note some of the other women who have made significant contributions to the advancement of society over the years. One of my favorites is Marie Curie, seen in this photo as the only women to appear alongside the intellectual powerhouse that assembled for the Solvay Conference in 1927. Seated between physicists Planck and Lorentz, she is in good company along with the likes of Einstein and Heisenberg.
Curie remains, to this day, the only person to have ever won a Nobel Prize in multiple sciences. [5]
Here are a couple other notable women that deserve recognition: - Gertrude Belle Elion (biochemist): Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1988. [6] Gertrude invented an incredible swathe of drugs using innovative new research methods [7], including the first treatment for leukemia. [8] - Jane Goodall (primatologist): outstanding achievement in anthropology through her incredible 45-year field study of wild chimpanzees [9] which has wildly changed the school of thought in regards to man's connection to primates. Goodall has been a role model of mine since I first encountered her and her work as a child reading National Geographic Magazine.
Instead of letting today pass only remembering one woman's contributions, take a moment to share your story and your female role model. [10]
So, what women do you revere in science, technology, engineering, or maths?
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
October 16th is Ada Lovelace Day, in which we celebrate women's achievements in science, technology, engineering, and math.
Ada Lovelace is heralded as the first computer programmer, writing programs (calculating Bernoulli Numbers) for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine as early as 1843 [1]. One of the most prominent mathematicians at the time, August de Morgan, had impressive things to say about her abilities, “which would require all the strength of a man's constitution to bear” [2], and Babbage himself highlighted her prowess over other contemporaries to Faraday, the legendary English scientist, in a succinct personal correspondence [3]. I've included a transcription of her work [4], showing just how thorough and detailed she was.
It's important to take a moment to note some of the other women who have made significant contributions to the advancement of society over the years. One of my favorites is Marie Curie, seen in this photo as the only women to appear alongside the intellectual powerhouse that assembled for the Solvay Conference in 1927. Seated between physicists Planck and Lorentz, she is in good company along with the likes of Einstein and Heisenberg.
Curie remains, to this day, the only person to have ever won a Nobel Prize in multiple sciences. [5]
Here are a couple other notable women that deserve recognition: - Gertrude Belle Elion (biochemist): Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1988. [6] Gertrude invented an incredible swathe of drugs using innovative new research methods [7], including the first treatment for leukemia. [8] - Jane Goodall (primatologist): outstanding achievement in anthropology through her incredible 45-year field study of wild chimpanzees [9] which has wildly changed the school of thought in regards to man's connection to primates. Goodall has been a role model of mine since I first encountered her and her work as a child reading National Geographic Magazine.
Instead of letting today pass only remembering one woman's contributions, take a moment to share your story and your female role model. [10]
So, what women do you revere in science, technology, engineering, or maths?
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
October 16th is Ada Lovelace Day, in which we celebrate women's achievements in science, technology, engineering, and math.
Ada Lovelace is heralded as the first computer programmer, writing programs (calculating Bernoulli Numbers) for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine as early as 1843 [1]. One of the most prominent mathematicians at the time, August de Morgan, had impressive things to say about her abilities, “which would require all the strength of a man's constitution to bear” [2], and Babbage himself highlighted her prowess over other contemporaries to Faraday, the legendary English scientist, in a succinct personal correspondence [3]. I've included a transcription of her work [4], showing just how thorough and detailed she was.
It's important to take a moment to note some of the other women who have made significant contributions to the advancement of society over the years. One of my favorites is Marie Curie, seen in this photo as the only women to appear alongside the intellectual powerhouse that assembled for the Solvay Conference in 1927. Seated between physicists Planck and Lorentz, she is in good company along with the likes of Einstein and Heisenberg.
Curie remains, to this day, the only person to have ever won a Nobel Prize in multiple sciences. [5]
Here are a couple other notable women that deserve recognition: - Gertrude Belle Elion (biochemist): Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1988. [6] Gertrude invented an incredible swathe of drugs using innovative new research methods [7], including the first treatment for leukemia. [8] - Jane Goodall (primatologist): outstanding achievement in anthropology through her incredible 45-year field study of wild chimpanzees [9] which has wildly changed the school of thought in regards to man's connection to primates. Goodall has been a role model of mine since I first encountered her and her work as a child reading National Geographic Magazine.
Instead of letting today pass only remembering one woman's contributions, take a moment to share your story and your female role model. [10]
So, what women do you revere in science, technology, engineering, or maths?
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I had a pleasant conversation with a Mac fanboi, this morning.
(08:51:01 AM) Linux User: Do Macs come with an SSH server by default? (08:51:12 AM) Mac User: bluh...huh? (08:51:19 AM) Mac User: just woke up (08:51:22 AM) Linux User: Oh, lol. (08:51:26 AM) Linux User: Good morning, sunshine. (08:51:30 AM) Mac User: lol (08:51:40 AM) Linux User: I've been at work for an hour. ;P (08:51:57 AM) Linux User: Anyways - does the default Mac have an SSH server? (08:51:57 AM) Mac User: now...what are you babbling about? (08:53:25 AM) Mac User: no, but ssh is supported for X11 apps (08:54:22 AM) Mac User: ....x11 being the x window environment in the Mac OS (08:54:47 AM) Linux User: Right. (08:55:22 AM) Linux User: So - X11 applications can SSH to other locations? (08:55:58 AM) Linux User: And - what's the Mac equivalent of a repository, and/or aptitude/apt-get/yum? (08:56:01 AM) Mac User: I really don't know, I haven't messed with it (08:56:12 AM) Mac User: what the fuck are those? (08:56:46 AM) Linux User: I can go to the command line here, and say... "apt-get install " and it'll download and install that program from the repository. (08:57:53 AM) Mac User: ...99% of Mac users don't go "Command-Line Commando" on their system.... (08:57:59 AM) Linux User: Also, if the program has any dependencies - it'll get those, too. (08:58:00 AM) Mac User: so...enjoy that.... (08:58:11 AM) Linux User: Oh, it has a GUI, too. (08:58:22 AM) Mac User: website? (08:59:02 AM) Linux User: It's a core component, it doesn't particularly have its own site. (08:59:22 AM) Linux User: Mac doesn't have an application finder and installer type thing? (08:59:24 AM) Mac User: of what? (08:59:27 AM) Mac User: no (08:59:30 AM) Linux User: Weird. (08:59:38 AM) Mac User: OMFG!!!! NO!!!! WHAT WILL I DO!???!?!? (08:59:51 AM) Linux User: I was trying to install openssh-server on a friend's mac... (08:59:57 AM) Mac User: y'all pc ppl always find the weirdest off-beat shit to pick at (09:00:05 AM) Linux User: Mac's are PCs to, ho. (09:00:16 AM) Linux User: Understand the word Personal Computer? (09:00:21 AM) Mac User: uh, by the definition "personal computer" only (09:00:38 AM) Linux User: PCs also don't have to run Microshaft. (09:00:43 AM) Mac User: but be it known that a pc is a pc and a Mac is a Mac (09:01:01 AM) Linux User: Considering Macs aren't "Macs" so much anymore, without the kooky PPC crap. (09:01:10 AM) Mac User: ? (09:01:42 AM) Linux User: They're regular PCs, now. I can install Windows on a Mac, I can install Plan9, MacOS, Linux. (09:01:52 AM) Linux User: They don't use PPC anymore, right? (09:02:05 AM) Mac User: you can't remove the Mac OS, though (09:02:10 AM) Linux User: ...want to bet? (09:02:13 AM) Mac User: yup (09:02:16 AM) Mac User: go ahead (09:02:20 AM) Linux User: LOL. (09:02:31 AM) Mac User: remove the Mac OS, and then lemme know what you plan to do (09:02:35 AM) Linux User: Anyways - MacBook pro - does it have more than one button? (09:02:45 AM) Mac User: FUCK NO!!!! (09:02:49 AM) Linux User: Alright, nevermind then. (09:02:58 AM) Mac User: now, shoo (09:02:59 AM) Linux User: I was going to buy one, because they're sexy. (09:03:01 AM) Mac User: go buy a dell (09:03:22 AM) Linux User: Dell is increasing their Linux support. (09:03:23 AM) Linux User: :) (09:05:19 AM) Mac User: that is to say that they now have some kind of linux support? (09:05:52 AM) Linux User: They've always had Linux support, but it's been somewhat hidden. (09:06:00 AM) Mac User: pphhhht (09:06:12 AM) Linux User: They're increasing client awareness of the option, now. (09:06:29 AM) Mac User: ya know, it really doesn't mean anything to me (09:07:11 AM) Linux User: I was considering purchasing a Macbook and installing Ubuntu on it, for my laptop. (09:07:25 AM) Mac User: I can run any other OS I want, should I happen to have a sudden drop in IQ, and my machine is pretty awesome.....so.... (09:07:55 AM) Mac User: why would you buy a Mac to run something you can run on a dell? (09:08:01 AM) Mac User: why? (09:08:04 AM) Linux User: Because Macs are sexier? (09:08:08 AM) Linux User: I don't want an ugly dell. (09:08:23 AM) Mac User: uh, yeah, and at least half the "sexier" is in the GUI (09:08:28 AM) Linux User: Not at all. (09:08:35 AM) Linux User: My GUI is 100% more teh sex. (09:08:45 AM) Mac User: ......wow (09:08:47 AM) Mac User: um (09:08:48 AM) Linux User: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzb3MSp82Vs (09:08:49 AM) Mac User: no (09:08:51 AM) Linux User: :) (09:09:05 AM) Linux User: You can't install Beryl or even Compiz in MacOS, can you? (09:09:46 AM) Mac User: ooh....pretty....gimmicks..... (09:10:08 AM) Linux User: Oh, is there an equivalent of workspaces in MacOS? (09:10:17 AM) Mac User: in Leopard, yeah (09:10:24 AM) Linux User: That's this next version, right? (09:10:30 AM) Mac User: yizzur (09:10:34 AM) Linux User: Awesome. (09:10:43 AM) Mac User: "Spaces" (09:10:49 AM) Linux User: Lol. (09:10:59 AM) Linux User: We Linux folk have had that for years. (09:11:00 AM) Mac User: http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/spaces.html (09:11:01 AM) Linux User: But anyways. (09:11:15 AM) Mac User: again....I don't care, and you're the only one who noticed (09:11:34 AM) Linux User: LOL. Awesome argument. :x (09:11:43 AM) Mac User: I don't argue anymore (09:12:03 AM) Mac User: If you've bigoted yourself into using PC (09:12:10 AM) Mac User: s, thats ur own fault (09:12:44 AM) Linux User: Well, if I can't "uninstall MacOS" - or heaven forbid, order it without MacOS, like I can order most PCs without any OS, for a significant price reduction... (09:12:49 AM) Linux User: It's not worth getting a Dell. (09:12:52 AM) Linux User: Or any "PC". (09:13:02 AM) Linux User: Or an Apple, for that matter. (09:13:08 AM) Linux User: Dell, I can do that with, though. (09:13:17 AM) Linux User: I share your Microsuck hatred. (09:13:18 AM) Linux User: I really do. (09:13:23 AM) Mac User: you make that sound like a feature (09:13:24 AM) Linux User: But I also hate MacOS with a passion. (09:13:32 AM) Mac User: for no reason (09:13:37 AM) Linux User: No, for full reason. (09:13:42 AM) Mac User: there's 2 sides of the fight, dude (09:13:46 AM) Linux User: It's a *nix OS, without all the good stuff. (09:13:48 AM) Mac User: Apple, and mico$ith (09:13:57 AM) Linux User: Then there's Linux. ;D (09:14:05 AM) Linux User: We're not part of the fight, we've already won. (09:14:06 AM) Mac User: you're out in the woods trying to be a nonconformist (09:14:22 AM) Linux User: Not at all, actually, I started using Linux because most of my friends were. (09:14:23 AM) Linux User: :/ (09:14:28 AM) Mac User: yeah, 2% market share. WOO HOO!!!! (09:14:36 AM) Linux User: 55% of the server share. :/ (09:14:48 AM) Linux User: I think it's above 60, actually? (09:14:58 AM) Mac User: http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/ (09:15:01 AM) Mac User: > you (09:15:16 AM) Linux User: Why, exactly, would I run MacOS as a server? When I have Linux? (09:15:23 AM) Linux User: You don't have a package manager (apt) (09:15:40 AM) Linux User: apt-get install apache2 php mysql (09:15:42 AM) Linux User: Done. (09:15:48 AM) Mac User: you wouldn't (09:15:58 AM) Mac User: and that's your business (09:16:04 AM) Mac User: why are you talking to me again? (09:16:20 AM) Mac User has signed off.
And that was him blocking me. Mac people really do think differently.
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No, only 10 people at a time can participate. However, if someone leaves, a new person can join. In this case, the Hangout went for quite some time and we had a lot of people to talk to. :)
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I like to take a balanced approach, if everyone went with the way the world was turning then we wouldn't be where we are as race today. "Push the envelope and blaze a new path to your destination and along the way you find the treasures that life has hidden away for just such a person."
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Want to schedule a Hangout to start at a specific time? Look no further.
ScheduleHangout.com will help you settle on a date and time with your selected parties, and do most of the heavy lifting for you. Personality still required, of course. :)
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Want to schedule a Hangout to start at a specific time? Look no further.
ScheduleHangout.com will help you settle on a date and time with your selected parties, and do most of the heavy lifting for you. Personality still required, of course. :)
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Want to schedule a Hangout to start at a specific time? Look no further.
ScheduleHangout.com will help you settle on a date and time with your selected parties, and do most of the heavy lifting for you. Personality still required, of course. :)
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The last paragraph speaks volumes of his first marriage and as divorced person, I know that can be tough to talk about with your children, no matter, how old they are.
Reading this was special, even if, I felt I was prying. Public figures are real people, too.
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Want to schedule a Hangout to start at a specific time? Look no further.
ScheduleHangout.com will help you settle on a date and time with your selected parties, and do most of the heavy lifting for you. Personality still required, of course. :)
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Really like this post. I'm a programmer without the academic degree, having only programmed for my own personal use as a hobby for 10+ years over 3 different languages. Only now considering getting a job in it. I never would've thought to put some of my work on GitHub.
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I agree content is a big differentiator that doesn't get the attention it deserves. I personally think that a novel new collaborative content strategy would be useful about now. Something more richly interlinked and taking advantage of the interconnectedness of the web at large, and all the information within it.
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It's so incredibly painful to see someone who had so much more to give departing from this world. It's tragic that he won't be around to see the results, but his efforts had massive impact on both my personal perspectives and the conversation surrounding the freedom of information. The world has lost a truly great man; one who had the courage to act and the talent to execute.
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Am I the only person here that sees something wrong with the relative size of the humans to the statue in the first picture? I do not see any other pictures where one statue is two or three times the size of the rest! Could the first pic be Photoshopped? Anybody ever read Thor Heyerdhal's book Aku Aku?
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Connecting invites to circles is a good idea. Added to whiteboard. The real magic of the app is to organize a group via polling their availability. Great for any sort of hangout, personal or business. +FindPeopleOnPlus
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Thing is, I know how to code, but I don't feel like I'm handed a lot of opportunities to use that skill to make personal choices. The last time I felt like I had a really trivial-to-set-up environment in which to write useful utilities in was HyperTalk. Maybe we as a community should do something about that.
(I'm not saying current usable environments don't exist; just that there's a lot of barriers for people who aren't don't primarily identify as computer geeks. Knowing coding basics is only half the battle here, I think.)
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Doesn't sound like a targeted attack but, just accidental luck to get into something thought to be secured.
Personally I think that in the IT industry there needs to be proactive training for all software developers because there is a serious deficit on security education and its very hard to keep up because of its ever changing nature. Better yet would be a strong investment in automated tools which could evaluate code for exploits. I'm sure some automated security checking exists out there but, I can tell you that if banks aren't using this sort of tool then I doubt many companies are.
Getting rid of Adobe reader and flash would also help greatly...
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+Lisa Way Good point. Capitalism is merely the right to own property. Free Markets, Libertarianism, Austrian Economics, and Right-Anarchism simply have shared ground and tend to go well together, but are importantly different things like Physics, Engineering, or Mathematics.
I think the idea that Capitalism and Self-Ownership are inseparable is a powerful idea that is in the heart of every person that came to the US with NOTHING looking or a better life. Too bad so many people born here don't understand that.
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Yes, yes--we all read about CERN's _spec_tacular FTL neutrino results. But did you see UC Berkley's paper on visual experience reconstruction from fMRI?
This effectively translates to being able to build a video of what a person is seeing (or imagining). Now imagine if they applied a more aggressive machine learning algorithm to their model.
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Yes, yes--we all read about CERN's _spec_tacular FTL neutrino results. But did you see UC Berkley's paper on visual experience reconstruction from fMRI?
This effectively translates to being able to build a video of what a person is seeing (or imagining). Now imagine if they applied a more aggressive machine learning algorithm to their model.
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Yes, yes--we all read about CERN's _spec_tacular FTL neutrino results. But did you see UC Berkley's paper on visual experience reconstruction from fMRI?
This effectively translates to being able to build a video of what a person is seeing (or imagining). Now imagine if they applied a more aggressive machine learning algorithm to their model.
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David, that is an excellent example. But the real problem as I see it is this device is converting apples to oranges, and that's hard/impossible to do well & consistently & for everyone. What you see with your eyes and interpret into your own internal thought process, and what you read from a description written by a program (and influenced by that programmers perspective and interpretation of the world as he perceives it) are very different things. One person will emphasize the color hue and saturation over the geometry and spatial composition of the image. Others will focus on details like what brand names are on the shirts, what landmarks are visible or implied, etc. The descriptions look pretty sterilized and minimal, but once again...where is the real value. I'm willing to concede that this has value for the visually impaired to some degree, but I don't see it as a revolutionary advance. It's more like a neat gimmick than the next big thing.
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Yes, yes--we all read about CERN's _spec_tacular FTL neutrino results. But did you see UC Berkley's paper on visual experience reconstruction from fMRI?
This effectively translates to being able to build a video of what a person is seeing (or imagining). Now imagine if they applied a more aggressive machine learning algorithm to their model.
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Tomorrow I'm a new person. I'm going to wake up at 6:00, I'm going to go see Amber, and then I'm going to run an undetermined amount that is greater than 1 mile. I'm going to do ten pushups every hour at work, as well as ten crunches. I'm going to watch my diet, and not take seconds. I'm going to beat my ass into shape.
I'm going to start actively job hunting a little more, and I'm going to strive to save my money. I'm going to explode into studying, I'm going to start looking more seriously at my education options, and how I'm going to get to that point. I'm going to start looking at my potential.
I'm going to become a better listener, a better friend. I'm going to be more understanding, caring, and loving. I'm going to become a better lover.
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I was just reviewing some of my older starred posts in Google Reader, and I came across a great post from ShoeMoney about Understanding Communities. Pam outlines some great approaches to the whole social media market, and how to understand and utilize the communities on which they are build.
Oldie but goodie! Does anyone have any feedback on how relevant this four month old post is? I for one, totally support the ideas that she came up with for usability. I don't think usability will ever become a non-issue, personally. SEO is huge, but as we've always hammered home - your visitors come first.
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Early this morning, somewhere within an hour of me getting in to work, there were a large number of sirens in my otherwise quiet town. Come to find out, the IGA (International Grocer's Association) down the road got robbed at gunpoint. The police showed up, chased them down the road and through town, crashing just near our watered version of downtown. Apparently one suspect has been apprehended, and two are still on the loose. There have been helicopters circling the area for a while, and intermittent sirens. The police and of all things the fire department have blocked off sections of roads, last I heard.
A wonderful start to a week, don't you think? Hey, at least there's something going on instead of the usual droll mood of a small town. To some ill effect, however: the internet here, Bellsouth, seems to have slowed to a complete and utter crawl. It seems to be letting up slightly now that the excitement is over, but this is unacceptable from a business class DSL service. It likely has to do with the news channels showing up and perhaps plugging in to landlines for their newscasts?
I had a good rest on Saturday, after a rather long night on Friday, and enjoyed my time with Amber. Sunday turned out to be a work day for me, as I was looking through a client's server logs in the morning, fixing my own computer woes, and then fixing an install of Linux for my family while my laundry ran. I left to fix MORE personal computer troubles, then headed out to finally relax with my love that evening.
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Now that I've upgraded to Google's Blogger Beta, I'm tweaking a bunch of controls on my blog. I am continually running into the user-friendly syndrome, where a feature is too user friendly and I can't get down to the nitty-gritty tech side of the application. While it saves me the five minute trouble of setting up a Wordpress or similiar in-house blog, it constantly reminds me of the merits of having the Wordpress, and consequently influencing me to neglect posting here at all.
I woke up this morning to a completed upgrade from Ubuntu's Dapper Drake (6.06 LTS) to Edgy Eft (6.10), after encountering some problems resulting from my own stupidity. Upgrading from the servers took a grand total of 16 hours, start to finish. This includes my time working out the kinks from my said stupidity, which I won't go into further here. Due to the complications, my personal alarm clock (XMMS and an alarm plugin...) failed to wake me at the goal of 5:30 AM, having not rung at all. Sadly, this caused me to miss the chance to see my beautiful Amber, with her leaving for school at 6:30, and me waking at 7. grumble
After rebooting the machine to seal the deal, I opened up my shiny new Firefox 2.0 to look at the GWing RSS feed. I clicked the most important thing at the time, a new topic titled A Tale of Two Wreckages: A True Story. I then proceeded to heartily laugh my way through the time I had remaining before I had to leave for work.
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Now that it's public i'd like to share some tips that i think enrich your experience here and help your art be heard and seen and some new ways of profiting from it.
1. Re think your marketing strategy I see a lot of artists still using the site like twitter or facebook and just posting songs and not giving any inside story about how it came to be or what influenced it. Give people a reason to comment on your posts and continue that discussion.
2. Collaborate with artists outside your medium One of the most rewarding things about this site is the quality of the community here. As a musician, think of ways you can collaborate with photographers, graphic artists, software engineers etc.. This idea i think is the future of how artists of all mediums can be profitable and retain their artistic integrity ( i have a collaboration with +Colby Brown and +byron rempel that i'm working on right now that will showcase this)
3. Be Humble or at least be real The major change for artists that i feel is coming is how this amount of engagement and deeper connectivity will promote certain types of artists. Don't think that no matter how talented you are you can get away with thinking your art is enough to stand on it's own. Also, promote who you are and get people invested in who you are as a person and let them find out about your art if they want to know more about you, but don't push it on to people.
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Now that it's public i'd like to share some tips that i think enrich your experience here and help your art be heard and seen and some new ways of profiting from it.
1. Re think your marketing strategy I see a lot of artists still using the site like twitter or facebook and just posting songs and not giving any inside story about how it came to be or what influenced it. Give people a reason to comment on your posts and continue that discussion.
2. Collaborate with artists outside your medium One of the most rewarding things about this site is the quality of the community here. As a musician, think of ways you can collaborate with photographers, graphic artists, software engineers etc.. This idea i think is the future of how artists of all mediums can be profitable and retain their artistic integrity ( i have a collaboration with +Colby Brown and +byron rempel that i'm working on right now that will showcase this)
3. Be Humble or at least be real The major change for artists that i feel is coming is how this amount of engagement and deeper connectivity will promote certain types of artists. Don't think that no matter how talented you are you can get away with thinking your art is enough to stand on it's own. Also, promote who you are and get people invested in who you are as a person and let them find out about your art if they want to know more about you, but don't push it on to people.
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A favorite quote of mine from my favorite physicist, Richard Feynman, on the importance of play. Dr. Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was notorious for being multi-faceted, in both his personal hobbies and his grasp of science. He worked on the Manhattan Project with Einstein, was part of the panel that investigated the Challenger Disaster, and his work plays a major role in the modern understanding of quantum computing.
“Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school, I’d see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn’t have to do it; it wasn’t important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn’t make any difference. I’d invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, ‘Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?’
I don’t remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, ‘Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it’s two to one is ...’ and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, ‘Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?’
‘Hah!’ I say. ‘There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.’ His reaction didn’t discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there’s the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ‘playing’ - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.
It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.”
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A favorite quote of mine from my favorite physicist, Richard Feynman, on the importance of play. Dr. Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was notorious for being multi-faceted, in both his personal hobbies and his grasp of science. He worked on the Manhattan Project with Einstein, was part of the panel that investigated the Challenger Disaster, and his work plays a major role in the modern understanding of quantum computing.
“Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school, I’d see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn’t have to do it; it wasn’t important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn’t make any difference. I’d invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, ‘Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?’
I don’t remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, ‘Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it’s two to one is ...’ and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, ‘Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?’
‘Hah!’ I say. ‘There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.’ His reaction didn’t discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there’s the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ‘playing’ - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.
It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.”
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A favorite quote of mine from my favorite physicist, Richard Feynman, on the importance of play. Dr. Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was notorious for being multi-faceted, in both his personal hobbies and his grasp of science. He worked on the Manhattan Project with Einstein, was part of the panel that investigated the Challenger Disaster, and his work plays a major role in the modern understanding of quantum computing.
“Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school, I’d see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn’t have to do it; it wasn’t important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn’t make any difference. I’d invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, ‘Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?’
I don’t remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, ‘Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it’s two to one is ...’ and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, ‘Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?’
‘Hah!’ I say. ‘There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.’ His reaction didn’t discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there’s the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ‘playing’ - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.
It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.”
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A favorite quote of mine from my favorite physicist, Richard Feynman, on the importance of play. Dr. Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was notorious for being multi-faceted, in both his personal hobbies and his grasp of science. He worked on the Manhattan Project with Einstein, was part of the panel that investigated the Challenger Disaster, and his work plays a major role in the modern understanding of quantum computing.
“Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school, I’d see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn’t have to do it; it wasn’t important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn’t make any difference. I’d invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, ‘Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?’
I don’t remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, ‘Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it’s two to one is ...’ and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, ‘Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?’
‘Hah!’ I say. ‘There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.’ His reaction didn’t discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there’s the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ‘playing’ - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.
It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.”
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It's been a crazy past couple weeks for me. I've been training up for my next fight (AFL 1, May 17, 2008 Elizabeth City, NC) and staying pretty busy at work. In other news, The Grand Tournament 2008 invitations were sent out, and RolePlayGateway will be hosting the event. I had a blast at the SEO - What You Need To Know Meetup in Raleigh, and met some great people (hi Ashley!), and got connected with the upcoming Advanced SEO Meetup (which I'm really looking forward to, Brian - sorry I missed the first one!).
Two of my friends passed away this past week, Brittany Custer and Chelsea Johnson, in two separate events. It's so sad - both of these girls had an entire life ahead of them.
A few of my friends have also had recent losses, all very devastating in their own way. I don't think you can possible hope to truly offer solace during times like these, but that is no reason to attempt to provide support and care for their loss.
It's a very polarizing view compared to what we often feel - especially looking at the age at which people pass away. With Cyclone Nargis and the China Earthquakes, there's a lot of pain in the world right now. It really makes you wake up out of whatever jaded state you're in and realize that hey, you're human. You're in this with the rest of us, regardless of how much hate you think you have.
I'm not participating in the elections this year. Full stop.
It's not that I don't feel like I can make a difference - it's that I refuse to be involved in what's going to happen next. I'll make my mark in my own way, this year. And hey, on a semi-related note, let me introduce you to an independent documentary (which means do your research to verify any of this) that I thoroughly recommend you sit down for 2 hours and watch. Two hours, give it your full attention.
All of that aside, let's all remember that we're in this together, like I said before. We need to be loving and supporting each other, through all of our trying times. Grow roots so that you might be able to nourish and feed others in their times of need, as we must do this in favor of our own health. (See The Golden Rule, figure 1.1)
For everyone who has lost someone, remember that everything has a cause and effect. You are still here and play a part in the effect of your loss - it is up to you to determine how you learn from and use the experiences you shared with this person. Be joyous and put these experiences to positive use, sharing and growing in their spirit.
Take refuge amongst your own family and friends - just as you have been there for them, they will be there for you.
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While marketing RolePlayGateway, one of the things we considered was the "virality" of our approach. Viral marketing is any marketing technique that induces Web sites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message's visibility and effect. We're going to guide you on the road to a truly viral campaign.
A successful viral push can be launched simply by following three simple rules.
Don't spend everything you have on a single campaign.
Don't rely entirely on one vehicle of viral marketing.
Be different from everyone else; stand out.
While we're not nearly viral enough, part of our success so far has been the evangelism of our passionate users. And there you have it, one of the most important keys to successful viral marketing:
Passion:
Users who are passionate about your service, your community, or your site. They will propagate, they will evangelize, and ultimately will generate more passionate users who will do the same thing for you. Dawn Anfusocalls these members Boomers - and it is important to not ignore them.
Make it easy for your users to share. Make it hard for them NOT to share. Add a feature on your site that encourages them to send an email to their friends about the service. Add blocks where they can copy and paste code straight to their social profiles on sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo. Jeanne Jennings wrote an amazing article on Optimizing the "E-mail This" Marketing Opportunity, and I'd recommend you read it and implement the things you learn from it.
Widgetize:
On that note, we arrive on one of our most powerful vehicles for viral marketing: Widgets. The list of sites that you can infect with widgets are endless. From iGoogle to individual sites, widgets encourage users to put your tool on their page. Be sure to incorporate other techniques here: Include encouragement to share it. Make it easy to post elsewhere and share.
One of the items that RolePlay Gateway could utilize to great success is the concept of game trailers. Many of the games on RPGateway are text-based, and have no real graphics. However, most of these games have amazing storylines, storylines which could be utilized to hitch audiences, or at least entertain them. Flash-based videos, or trailers, with pivotal content, captivating video and audio, and viral marketing elements such as "Email this!" or "Share This", would be an amazing leap forward. Take a look at how YouTube's video player works. Such trailers could even be uploaded to social networking sites, like YouTube and Google Video, and shared to millions of users with a touch of viral marketing magic.
Juice It Up:
Include your URL everywhere you go. Facebook, MySpace. Everywhere. This generates user authority, even if the site you are on has nothing at all to do with your target market. Cross sections are a beautiful thing, and even if you don't get a drop of link juice in comments, market saturation is a very important, yet delicate, part of viral marketing.
Maintain a presence on every social networking site you can sustain. Extend your campaign to all of them. Create social groups for each of these sites, and publicize them. The more targets you hit, just like investing, the less committed you are to that particular market. Your assets are distributed, and while the workload may be unfathomably difficult (keeping up with so many social networking sites sucks... that's why we have ProfileLinker), the potential for success is incredible.
Reward:
Another option is to provide tangible rewards for marketing. This can be in the form of prizes, such as in a contest, or to individual users. Incentives are very powerful, and drive many users to promote where they'd be otherwise apathetic. Things can be very simple, such as giving them tokens or credits, to very expensive, such as providing real cash per referral. This is probably the most effective, albeit expensive, method of encouraging users to infect others.
Don't Stop.
Don't set these actions in motion and then hope they work. Get involved. Comment on profiles. Reply to messages. Enhance your viral effect. Make it tangible. If users can see that there is a real person there, they will be a lot more enthusiastic and encouraged to participate, and your viral marketing campaign will be more successful.
Other Resources!!!Web Marketing Today has an amazing list of resource articles that are sure to help you build your campaign.
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[K]r.github.com. Keith Rarick's GitHub redirect. Total ass-kicker.
[L]inkedIn. Pretty straightforward, between hiring for our team at @Mirascape and the travel to and from various conferences and Meetups lately.
[M]irascape. The augmented reality platform I'm responsible for.
[N]oxBot. A nice PHP-powered IRC bot with various plugins. A bit out of date, but very powerful. Been using it for a couple things lately.
[O]K, QR Me!. A QR Code-generating link shortener I built.
[P]ostmark. Best Email delivery service I've used. Nice RESTful API, flat rate for emails sent.
[Q]uora. These guys nail Q&A, and they're doing it pretty well. Check out all their buzz, too. But for some reason, I just don't stick.
Google [R]eader. “From your 1,040 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 21,549 items, clicked 274 items, starred 853 items, shared 37 items, and emailed 8 items.” -- </stats>
[S]erver Stats for Mirascape. Powered by Munin, it's how I keep track of the status and metrics of all my servers.
[T]witter. Not surprising. I love their webapp for my personal use, but own and manage at least five accounts using SplitTweet.
[U]serVoice. Pretty sweet tool I use for giving the communities I manage a good way to build a consensus on what they desire most. Examples I run: for RolePlayGateway, and EVE UserVoice for EVE Online.
[X]DA Developers. An indisposable resource for getting rid of carrier-installed crap and running my own choice of software on the hardware I purchased!
[Z]ecco. Where I trade most of my public stocks. :)
Surprisingly populist, and there's a lot of Google-owned properties in there. I'm also using Chromium, so I think it prefers the roots of the sites I visit instead of searching through my history for individual pages.
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2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth. This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.
Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.
Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4]. As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].
Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment. It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.
After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks. Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry. My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!
Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways. Now let's go make the world a better place.
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Onward, and Ever Upward 2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth. This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.
Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.
Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4]. As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].
Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment. It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.
After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks. Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry. My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!
Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways. Now let's go make the world a better place.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Onward, and Ever Upward 2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth. This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.
Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.
Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4]. As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].
Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment. It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.
After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks. Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry. My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!
Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways. Now let's go make the world a better place.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Onward, and Ever Upward 2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth. This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.
Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.
Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4]. As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].
Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment. It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.
After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks. Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry. My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!
Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways. Now let's go make the world a better place.
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There's been a lot of active discussion about the state of AOL's directory project, DMOZ. There have been many attempts to unseat the directory project from its position as the most authoritative listing resource, such as the Yahoo Directory. Many of these attempts have fallen by the wayside, as Rand Fiskin points out, but none have remained more controversial than DMOZ. More recently, Chris Crum's post on WebProNews about his lack of respect for DMOZ has stirred up a hornet's nest of DMOZ criticism, including a particular post claiming DMOZ is a waste of time.
I forwarded a lot of this on to Philip Nicolcev, known by username as "frug", who is the editor of several roleplay-oriented categories on DMOZ. He responded to me directly with a highly insightful email, and I was fortunate enough to receive his permission to share its contents.
I've been editing the pbp category at DMOZ for what... 4 years now? About that. This article is a big whiny complaint which misses the mark. They are both correct and sadly mistaken.
Yes, dmoz is outdated and yes, it fails because of attitude problems, but not silly allegations of 'corruption' or people who are bitter because they didn't get listed. We don't list everything, I don't list even half of the submissions I get, and anyone who has been an administrator or an editor for a similar type of project knows better than to take these kinds of complaints seriously.
One thing they say is definitely correct: Apply once carefully following their rules if you wish and then, as Will suggested, forget about them.
This is exactly the approach that should be modeled for any directory, regardless of its state or condition. When you are submitting a link to a directory, you are being offered the privilege to be listed as a resource by the owners and management of that directory. They are not obligated to list your link, let alone review it in a timely fashion--but this would be genuinely appreciated and would reflect on the directory's position as a "good" resource.
DMOZ is the primary source for Google's Directory, and you must respect the opinion of such a large and successful company. It's obvious that the idea behind an open directory like DMOZ is good, but where they fail is in execution. More on that later.
He continues:
That is what you should do. Apply once and forget about it, don't claim anybody is corrupt because whether you believe my opinion or not, there's no corruption. Nobody cares enough about dmoz anymore for it to be valuable for extortion. Don't be ridiculous. Furthermore if you were to speak to some of the senior editors you'd discover that they are pretty damn uptight, even obsessive.
The problems with dmoz are, in my opinion, twofold. First off, you have the dated trashy look of the website which is a relic of the 1990's. It's not user friendly, it doesn't entice anyone to go browsing, and it hasn't adapted or added features that would help people understand the structure of the directory or find what they're looking for. The editor forums still use phpBB2, and you should see the editing panel. You wouldn't believe how dated this stuff is. Frankly it has needed an overhaul for years now.
I largely agree with him. The phpBB team deprecated the phpBB2 branch at the beginning of this year, ending support for the outdated platform. AOL would do well to do a complete overhaul of the site's design now that "Web 2.0" has come and gone (and I could referencepostsallday on that) - and AOL has completely missed their opportunity to latch on and ride the wave.
Philip finishes his correspondance with the frightening truth that has been plaguing many post-Web2.0 sites and services:
The second problem, attitude, is partially the cause of the first problem. It's a stagnant atmosphere where nothing gets done and nobody gets listened to. They would rather leave a directory as a cluttered mess of garbage than risk breaking its structure by overhauling it. Fixing my category took me about two years before I had approval to restructure it, and I'm in a small niche category nobody pays much attention to. Since becoming an editor I have deleted about 60% of the outdated links listed. Had I not joined, they'd still be there cluttering things up with linkspam geocities pages from 10 years ago.
So yeah, dmoz is failing, but not because of corruption or because some guy didn't get what he wanted. And, honestly, if the author of this article was applying to dmoz just to 'test how fair it was' then I'm glad they rejected him. Somehow they made the right decision because he's wasting their time.
And that's the exact problem - the DMOZ community has completely stagnated, which has resulted in the puddle of goop that the directory has become. In my personal opinion, I think that AOL could do a lot better job at community management (all reputation management aside) by setting up a more rigid structure of responsibility. The editors need to be held responsible for a timely review specified by their superiors, and there needs to be cross-checking of the editor's work by other qualified editors.
All said and done, DMOZ needs some love if it's going to survive as anything more than a relic of trust and authority in the Web 2.0 bubble. As Philip points out, it has both good and bad traits and deserves further attention, but it needs to be attention in (and from) the right direction. The questions remain; where has AOL been? What can be done about the editors (or lack thereof)? How can DMOZ be improved?
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Cutting weight continues to be a significant part of weight-restricted sports such as MMA, wrestling and boxing. It has gone on for so long that as the old aphorism goes, "Familiarity breeds contempt."
There's been a lot of active discussion about the state of AOL's directory project, 